Bending the Paw

by Diane Kelly

  Her mother scoffed and muttered “Teenagers.” She cupped her hands around her mouth and called after her daughter. “We love you, too, sweetie pie!”

  Her daughter looked up from her phone just long enough to cast a look of disgust back at her parents. The Hashims chuckled before returning their attention to me.

  I asked, “Have you left messages for the roofing company’s salesman?”

  “I have not been able to,” Mr. Hashim said. “The recording tells me that his voicemail box is full.”

  Not surprising. Their inboxes were likely full of messages from upset people wondering why their new roofs hadn’t been installed yet. “Have any shingles been delivered?” I asked.

  “Only one package,” the man said. “I put it in the garage. Several of our neighbors also signed contracts with Stormchaser Roofting. Their calls have also been ignored.”

  “Do you have your contract handy?”

  Mr. Hashim strode to an antique roll top desk in the living room, retrieved the document, and handed it to me. Sure enough, a business card with the name Tommy Perkins on it was stapled to the agreement. I quickly looked it over. It appeared to be the same contract as the one Althea Nomikos has signed. In fact, the purported project start date listed was the same as hers, 2/17 or February 17th. A roofing company often had multiple crews, so the fact that the dates were the same didn’t necessarily mean Perkins had intentionally misled the customers. On the other hand, it was concerning that yet another customer couldn’t seem to get much in the way of results from Stormchaser.

  After snapping pictures of each page of the contract, I said, “You aren’t the first to complain about Stormchaser Roofing. Let me see if I can get you some answers.” I dialed Tommy Perkins, but after five rings the number switched to an automated recording telling me the voicemail box was full. Ugh. I settled for sending Tommy Perkins a text. This is Officer Luz. Call me right away. I tried the crew chief’s phone, too, with the same results. I sent him a text, as well.

  Mr. Hashim shook his head. “Is Mr. Perkins a crook?”

  “Honestly, sir? I’m not sure.” At best, Perkins appeared to be an unscrupulous salesman, bending the truth and telling customers what they wanted to hear so that they’d sign contracts with the company he represented. “I’ll go see what I can find out and be back in touch.” When I made a promise, I intended to keep it.

  I loaded Brigit back into the car and drove over to the rental unit to see if Tommy Perkins might still be there. No such luck. His truck wasn’t in the drive, and nobody answered the door. Looked like he’d already headed out to work for the day.

  When I returned to my cruiser, I drove over to speak to Althea Nomikos. Once again, there was no roofing crew at her house, no additional shingles delivered. “Any word on your crew?”

  “Of course not,” she said. “I’ve tried Tommy Perkins a dozen times and can’t reach him. Seems he’s turned his phone off.”

  I informed her that the department had received other complaints about Stormchaser. “I’ll talk to my captain again, see how he wants to handle it.”

  “I can’t keep waiting,” she said. “There’s rain in the forecast for later in the week. I’ve got another roofing company coming out here this afternoon. They say they can start work on Thursday and cover my roof with a tarp in the meantime. I talked to my bank about getting my money back, but they said they can’t do anything now that the check has been cashed. I’ll have to chalk up that five hundred dollars I gave to Stormchaser as a loss. That was an expensive lesson.”

  She glared at me as if the situation were my fault. Not fair, but not unusual, either. When people couldn’t directly confront the person who’d caused them trouble, they often directed their rage at the person who couldn’t make things right. In many cases, that person was me. I’d learned not to take things too personally. Still, it rankled a bit.

  I drove back to the station, led Brigit inside, and sat down at one of the desktop computers where I could perform research more comfortably than in my squad car.

  Through the open doorway, I saw Derek walk into the station and hit up Melinda for the key to the supply cabinet. He came into the room and went to the cabinet to round up a fresh citation pad for writing traffic tickets. When he saw me at the computer, he scoffed. “Desk jockey.”

  I didn’t bother looking up at him. It was a lame insult, and I had better things to do with my energy than return the slight. Instead, I ran the name “James Thomas Perkins” through the criminal database. Although I received several hits, none of the men with the name were the same guy I was looking for. A couple were African American, not Caucasian like the James Thomas Perkins I was after, and all were too young, anyway. So, for what it was worth, Tommy Perkins didn’t appear to have a criminal record.

  I moved on to type “James Thomas Perkins” and the word “roofing” into my browser. Nothing came back. I tried the man’s name again, along with the word “fraud.” Still nothing. Finally, I tried his name alone. The Internet spit out a long list of obituaries for men with the same name who’d already passed on, as well as other useless information about various men with the name James Thomas Perkins. A disparaging hotel review one of them had posted. An employee-of-the-month award earned for selling the most used cars at a dealership in Nashua, New Hampshire. A James Thomas Perkins served as treasurer for his local Rotary Club. A man with the name had placed third in a popsicle-eating competition in the Florida Keys, winning a T-shirt and a coupon for twenty-five percent off at the souvenir shop that had held the event.

  Discouraged, I sat back in my chair and ran my hand over Brigit’s back. The motion not only soothed her, it helped calm my mind so I could think. Brigit turned her head so she could lick my hand in gratitude. She too, let me know this job wasn’t entirely thankless. “You’re welcome, Briggie Boo,” I said.

  A moment later, it dawned on me. Just as I used Briggie Boo as one of many endearing nicknames for Brigit, James Thomas Perkins was going by the nickname Tommy. What if he’s used different nicknames before?

  I ran a search for fraud committed by Thomas Perkins, and Jim Perkins, but got nothing. But when I tried the name Jimmy Perkins, I hit possible pay dirt. An article dated eighteen months ago from the Dodge City Daily Globe newspaper noted that a man named Jimmy Perkins had been associated with a company called MixMaster Cement & Asphalt, Ltd. Jimmy Perkins had solicited contracts in rural areas to replace gravel drives with concrete or asphalt. After canvassing the area for a week or two, he’d disappeared into thin air and the work had never been started.

  Neither law enforcement nor any of the victims or their attorneys could reach anyone associated with the company. The incorporator of MixMaster, whose name was listed as Richard Jones, could not be positively identified. No personal identification was required when submitting articles of incorporation to establish a business, and many people filed the documentation by mail or online. It would have been easy for an unscrupulous person to submit paperwork under a fictitious name. The article went on to say that, when law enforcement contacted MixMaster’s bank, they discovered that only $2.83 remained in the company’s business account. The name and Social Security number used to open the business account at the online bank belonged to a Nebraska man who’d been deceased for over a decade. The dismayed customers lost their money and never got justice.

  Could this concrete con man be the guy who’s now going by the name Tommy Perkins? Unfortunately, I couldn’t be certain. Because Jimmy Perkins could not be located, no arrest had been made and no photograph was included with the news article.

  I continued to scuttle around on the World Wide Web, looking for any other evidence that Tommy Perkins had previously engaged in fraudulent conduct. Again, I hit potential pay dirt. A few inches of newsprint in the Pueblo, Colorado Chieftain detailed a scam involving a Jimmie Perkins. The man had enticed small business owners to hire Surefire Snow Plow Service Corp. to remove snow and ice from their parking lots. Back in November and De
cember, dozens of customers had paid several hundred dollars each in up-front fees only to suffer distress and sore backs when no snow plow arrived to clear their properties and they had to do the work on their own with a handheld shovel. The article noted that calls to Jimmie Perkins were not returned, and that no other valid contact information for the company could be found. While the pool of victims had been scammed out of over eighty grand, no single victim had lost more than $750, the amount of their down payments. When the police department had been unable to bring about justice, the victims had likely done what Althea Nomikos had done—chalk the incident up to experience and moved on with their lives.

  Once again, the article contained no photo or other means by which I could verify if the man who’d scammed the small business owners was one and the same with the Tommy Perkins now securing contracts for Stormchaser Roofing. But even though paving and plowing services were different from roofing, the similarities in the overall schemes could not be ignored. While Brigit dozed on my toes, I phoned the Dodge City, Kansas, and Pueblo, Colorado, police departments to see if I could get more information.

  The detective in Dodge City admitted the case hadn’t gotten far. “The company used an online bank, and the identity of the person who opened the account belonged to a man who’d passed away years ago. Someone obviously stole his information. We never could find Jimmy Perkins and positively identify him. We also weren’t sure whether he was the one running the scam, or whether he was an unwitting dupe for the owner of the business. Everything was smoke and mirrors.”

  “Did any of the victims mention whether Mr. Perkins drove a vehicle with New Mexico license plates?”

  “I can’t recall. I’d be happy to forward the reports to you so you can take a look.”

  In other words, he didn’t have the time to review the reports himself, and if I wanted the information I’d have to dig through the pages for it. But who could blame the guy for passing the task on to me? After all, he’d already closed the case and probably had dozens of others demanding his attention now.

  “Yes. Please send the reports.” I thanked him, ended the call, and immediately placed another, this time to the Pueblo PD.

  The detective in Pueblo said the Jimmie Perkins who’d signed small business owners up for snow plow services had driven a truck with Colorado license plates, not New Mexico plates. “Problem was,” she said, “nobody made a note of the number. The most anyone lost was around three hundred dollars, nothing that would set them back too much. Besides, we weren’t sure we’d be able to pin anything on Perkins. I spoke to the guy on the phone once, and he told me that the owners of the plowing business had up and disappeared, and that they still owed him a commission check. Sounded to me like he was a victim himself.”

  Her conclusion had been reasonable, but taking into consideration that the man had been associated with another similar scheme, it was highly unlikely that he’d been a victim rather than a willing participant, even the mastermind, in a complicated con game.

  She agreed to forward her documentation to me, also. “It might be a day or two,” she said. “We’re working a triple homicide.”

  Three murders? She’d one-upped me. Or, rather, two-upped me. Suddenly, my single homicide, without even a corpse to show for my efforts, seemed like small beans. A disturbing and ironic thought, huh?

  We ended the call and I ran a search through both the New Mexico and the Colorado DMV records for a pickup truck registered in the name of James Thomas Perkins. I got squat. Were the trucks rentals? Could be. Perkins could have rented the truck he was now driving in New Mexico before heading to Texas. Or he could have flown or taken a train or bus to Texas, then rented the truck here. After all, it wasn’t unusual for rental vehicles that were registered in one state to end up in another. Customers sometimes rented cars for one-way trips and returned them to different locations.

  Deciding to try another tack, I used the number I’d pulled from Perkin’s driver’s license to find his record in the system. I made note of the address listed and searched for vehicles registered at the address. Two vehicles came up. A Toyota SUV and a Subaru Crosstrek. Neither was the truck Perkins had been driving. What’s more, the names associated with the registrations were Brody and Abbie Bingham. A search of earlier records showed that the Binghams had updated the addresses on their vehicle registrations and driver’s licenses approximately three years prior. Could the Binghams be related to Tommy Perkins? Maybe a daughter and her husband?

  I ran a search of the New Mexico vital records, but found no birth certificate linking James Thomas Perkins to any child, let alone a daughter named Abigail. Of course, she could have been born elsewhere. I found no marriage license for him, either. Was the wedding ring also a farce, or had he been married in another state? Although I was curious, I didn’t spend more time on the matter. Whether he was a father or a husband was far less important than whether he was a darn thief.

  According to the images on Google Earth and the property records, the address on Perkins’s driver’s license was for a single-family home that he had sold to the Binghams a little over three years ago. A quick look at Mrs. Bingham’s Facebook page told me she was a sixtyish woman who was into knitting, cats, and cooking. She looked too old to be his daughter. What’s more, her page gave no indication of any relation to Perkins. Hmm.

  A call to the home got me no further. Mrs. Bingham had no idea where the previous owner of their house now lived. “We never met Mr. Perkins,” she said. “We only met his realtor when we were shown the house.”

  “What about Mrs. Perkins?”

  “Far as I know,” the woman said, “he wasn’t married. His name was the only one on the deed and nobody else was listed in the documentation when we bought the place.”

  This fact supported my belief that the wedding band Tommy Perkins wore was a ruse, a subtle symbol he’d adopted to make himself seem more stable or honest. People might assume, rightfully or not, that a married man would be more reliable than one who was single. Perkins hadn’t updated his driver’s license as the law required, and during our conversation he had commented about returning to Las Cruces, leading me to believe the address on the card was valid. That behavior alone was dubious. But when you added in all of the other factors, I felt fairly certain now that Tommy Perkins was a shyster. Even so, without a photo or eyewitness to identify him as one and the same with Jimmy and Jimmie Perkins, a small sliver of doubt remained.

  I checked my email. The reports from Dodge City had arrived. Unfortunately, they were vague on details. Nobody had a license plate for the vehicle the so-called “Jimmy Perkins” had been driving, nor did anyone know where he lived or was staying. The phone number he’d been using to conduct business had been deactivated, and the mailing address the business had provided to its online bank was phony, belonging instead to a beauty salon that had been in business at the same location for years.

  I checked back in with Captain Leone, updating him on the information I found and handing him the reports from the Dodge City PD.

  His eyes narrowed as he read the reports. Frowning, he tilted his head from one side to the other, as if mentally weighing the evidence, before holding his head upright again. “This evidence isn’t quite enough to arrest him, but it’s enough to raise serious suspicions. Beside the fact that the other men were using the last name Perkins, there’s no proof they are the same guy who’s working for the roofing company here. There’s not even any proof that Perkins was their real name. Let’s see what the reports from Colorado say when they come in. In the meantime, go talk to Tommy Perkins again. If he confesses or admits to having any connection to those companies in Kansas and Colorado, you can bring him in for further questioning.”

  Having obtained my marching orders, I ran by the Airbnb Perkins had leased. Once again, I found no truck in the driveway and nobody at home. Not a surprise, really. He was likely still out and about, drumming up more business for Stormchaser. The thought that he could be racking
up more victims made my gut twist. While people generally thought of the police as their defenders against violent crime, the vast majority of our work involved protecting the public from non-violent offenders.

  I set back out on patrol, cruising slowly up and down the streets, keeping a close eye out for a pickup truck with New Mexico plates. No such luck. Looked like Tommy Perkins was working another part of Fort Worth today. Or maybe he’d left town entirely. Had I missed my chance to nab him?

  * * *

  Late that afternoon, Detective Jackson called my cell phone. I turned into the parking lot of a fast-food joint so I could speak with her safely.

  “I just got off the phone with Trish LeGrande,” she said.

  The television reporter had called? Why? “Did she want information about Greg Olsen’s murder investigation?”

  “No,” Jackson said. “She didn’t ask me for information. She gave me some instead. She told me Shelby Olsen has filed a petition with the court to have her husband declared dead.”

  “She did?” Greg couldn’t have survived losing as much blood as he had, yet there was no body to prove his demise. What, exactly, was required for a judge to rule someone deceased? I’d never run into the issue before, and I was curious. “I thought a person had to be missing seven years before they’d be considered dead.”

  “There are exceptions,” Jackson said. “Under Texas law, a person who is missing and unheard from for seven years is presumed dead. But a judge can declare a person dead sooner if the circumstances show that the person is likely dead, even if there is no direct evidence. The court decides what evidence is sufficient.”

  I supposed it made sense. After all, in some cases, bodies could not be recovered. Boats sunk at sea, for example, or explosions and fires destroyed human remains and made identification difficult if not impossible. Sometimes, only parts of a person could be found, such as when animals scattered their bones in the woods. Why force a family to wait seven years to probate a will or collect insurance proceeds when it was clear their loved one was no longer alive? “How did Trish LeGrande learn about Shelby’s petition?”